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Kylie Minogue reflects on Glastonbury performance a year on

The singer took to the stage 14 years after she had to pull out due to a cancer diagnosis.

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Glastonbury Festival 2019 – Day 5

Kylie Minogue said she has still not found the words to express how much her Glastonbury appearance last year meant to her.

The singer took to the Pyramid Stage in 2019 after a cancer diagnosis in 2005 forced the Australian to pull out of the festival that year.

Reflecting on the emotional performance last year, she told BBC Radio 2: “If it hadn’t been recorded, if there wasn’t proof that that had happened, I might doubt it, you know, and at the same time it was so very real.

Glastonbury Festival 2019 – Day 5
Kylie Minogue performing with Nick Cave at the festival (Yui Mok/PA)

“The preparation, the 30 years trying to get that amount of songs, and then of course in 2005 having to cancel. So, it’s such a difficult thing to talk about because there’s so many opposing feelings that are all amazing. It’s quite surreal.”

She added: “I think I was so focused on just trying to do the best job possible. I knew that there was an emotional part coming up where I would be reminded that things might have been different.

“So, yeah it meant an awful lot for the fact of recovery and tenacity, I suppose, and kind of hanging in there and sticking at it and faced with 30 years of my career and what that’s meant to me, and another overwhelming thing was just knowing that not everyone in the audience but a lot of the people in that immense crowd, I’ve never seen so many people, that we had a connection at some point in time with a song or many songs.

“So I wish I’d been able to listen to all the good advice I had from the likes of Chris Martin before who said ‘you know they’re there for you, just enjoy, just do it, take your time’ I said ‘time?! I’ve got 75 minutes, I can’t go over’. I was really stressed about the time.

“But if I was talking to someone else I’d be just pleading with them, just be in the moment – easier said than done.”

The festival has been cancelled this year because of the coronavirus crisis but the BBC is still broadcasting The Glastonbury Experience from Worthy Farm in Somerset and airing festival highlights from over the years, including headline sets from Beyonce, Adele and David Bowie.

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